


Warm Blooded

by sunshinewinchesters



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: BAMF Shane Madej, Blood and Violence, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt Ryan Bergara, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, It's For a Case, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining Ryan Bergara, Protective Shane Madej, Ryan Bergara Loves Shane Madej, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Supernatural Elements, Well you're gonna fucking get some cuddling, you want cuddling?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 09:19:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16531772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinewinchesters/pseuds/sunshinewinchesters
Summary: Ryan's never cold when Shane's around.





	Warm Blooded

**Author's Note:**

> I am so fucked up on protective Shane, don't even touch me,

So. 

Ryan is losing his shit. 

The thing is. He’s in _love_ with his best friend. He’s fucking in love with Shane Madej.

He’s _been_ in love with him for God knows how long, and for someone who likes to think of himself as emotionally competent and mature, Ryan is only just now putting all the pieces together and realizing he is unmistakably, stupidly, deeply in love with Shane. 

It’s not like in those stupid cheesy rom-coms he secretly loves to binge watch. There’s no amazing, grand epiphany that leads perfectly into him knowing with exactly what big romantic gesture he’s going to confess his undying love for his best friend. It’s more like getting hit by a car, the way the realization drives the breath from his lungs and is completely monumental and equally as unexpected. 

There was no gradual build up, either. Ryan was just sitting at his desk this morning, editing the research he’d collected for this week’s Supernatural case, and his gaze had wandered over to Shane, like it always does when he’s lost in thought. Except this time, he’d looked at Shane, seen him messing with his hair while smiling at something on his computer screen, and suddenly he was so desperately overcome with affection that he felt like he was dying. 

Shane’ll be singing along to the radio in the car while they drive to the haunted location-of-the-week, and he sounds so awful, passionately belting out the lyrics to _Total Eclipse of the Heart_ like he was born to do it that all Ryan can do is try to breathe through the fierce fondness burning deep inside him.

Shane makes some joke about whatever treacherous demon hell hole they’re in when Ryan’s on the verge of having a panic-induced heart attack and then Ryan’s choking on his laughter, his fears suddenly miles away. When he catches his breath, Ryan’s left smiling stupidly up at the skeptic, unsure how to put into words how devoted Ryan is to this, to them, to Shane. He’d agree to go film their show in hell, so long as Shane’s there to keep him company and make dumb remarks about the smell of burning flesh or whatever else he finds pun-worthy.

But now that the initial freight train has hit him dead on, Ryan couldn’t be more hyper aware of everything he feels for Shane, and how deeply he feels it, unlike anything he’s ever felt for anyone else before. 

And if that’s not enough to make Ryan lose his shit totally and completely, then there’s this other thing that will definitely do the trick: the case that they’re on the way to right now.

After they’d checked in at the office and gotten the final funds approvals, they’d flown up to the Seattle-Tacoma airport in Washington, a blessedly short couple hour flight. From there, they’d gotten a rental and began the drive down to the Olympic peninsula, heading for Hell Hiker’s Wood in the rainforest there. 

That about gets everything up to speed. Ryan’s got his notebook open on his lap as Shane navigates the perilously narrow and icy road winding a serpentine path through the dense forest all around them. It’s easier to focus on fingering through the articles he’d printed out and taped onto the pages than it is to look out the window and see how dusk is approaching much too fast for Ryan’s liking, with shadows growing longer and darker all around them. There’s something genuinely unnerving about heading deeper into the woods -- very haunted woods, no less -- as the sunlight grows weaker and night begins creeping in at the edges. Some survival instinct he didn’t even know he had pulses weakly in his hind brain, like something primal inside him is warning him this is both stupid and dangerous.

But that’s the show, right? Ryan giving a big middle finger to every sense of self preservation he has in hopes of finding evidence that ghosts and demons are real. Definitely both stupid and dangerous. Ryan chuckles to himself and the anxiety is shoved aside for giddiness; he’s equal parts scared shitless and totally pumped. The research he’s done on this place is more than compelling enough to suggest that these have to be the most haunted woods in all of America -- after all, this forest has earned its name with multiple cases of unsolved and unexplained murder. 

The first two recorded cases are startlingly similar, each with a lone hiker going mysteriously missing, only to be found later by a search parties dead, body gruesomely mutilated in a way that rules out any animal entirely, meaning the murderer had to be human, or something supernatural. 

The third case makes Ryan’s blood curdle, goosebumps break out all over his skin as he re-reads the article clippings he has organized neatly into his notebook. Two brothers went hiking together and set up camp by the river that runs through this section of the forest. When the older brother had woken up the next morning, the younger brother was gone. He’d spent hours looking around and calling out for him, but to no avail. Once it started getting dark, the older brother had decided he’d better get back to civilization and get an actual search party out to look for his little brother, so he’d followed the river down to where the nearest ranger’s camp was. According to his story, he’d stopped along the river bank to check the coordinates on his GPS when he’d seen the shape of a body caught in the mud and branches a bit downstream. When he got closer he realized it was his brother, dead and mutilated exactly as the the past two bodies reportedly were, with deep cuts all over the scalp, mangled hands, broken ribs, and an X carved so deeply over the heart that muscle and bone were reportedly visible.

And then there are the reports of the remarkably, unexplainably preserved bodies of murder victims washing up along the riverbank throughout the years, all with similar if not identical disfigurements. Not to mention countless DNA tests and forensic experts’ opinions point to the murderer not being a human. 

Ryan shudders against his seatbelt, teeth digging into his bottom lip hard enough to sting. Shane reaches over and puts a giant, warm hand on his shoulder and shakes him gently, glancing over his way with a smile that calms Ryan’s pounding heart. “You over there workin’ yourself up over made up ghost stories, Ry?” Shane asks, his teasing lightening the mood exponentially. Ryan shrugs Shane’s hand off and raises an eyebrow. 

“They’re definitely not made up, you jackass, these are all eye witness reports _and_ there’s pictures, so you can get fucked.” Ryan huffs, but he’s smiling at the stupidly adorable look on Shane’s face as he looks at Ryan all soft and disarming. 

“Well they have to be made up, or at least committed by actual alive human beings, because, as I’ve stressed since the beginning of this series, ghosts aren’t real,” Shane replies, looking back to the road. 

“I think tonight is gonna be the night you are proven embarrassingly wrong, my friend,” Ryan declares, sitting back in his seat and flipping to the next page in his notebook with a grin. “I have a good feeling about this place. Well, actually I feel pretty fucking scared, but same thing, because we’re totally going to see something and you’re gonna shit yourself and I will have ‘told you so’ rights for the rest of forever. So suck on that, Madej!”

“I won’t be sucking on anything, this is just a regular ol’ creepy forest where some people died by being mauled by bears or something equally realistic, no ghosts or ghouls or anything involved.” Ryan thinks Shane sounds way too cocky when they haven’t even explored the place yet, so he settles for some ominous bullshit, because Shane eats that stuff up.

“Okay, whatever you say, just don’t come crying to me when your pretty face is all scratched up because some spirit got sick of your stupid ass remarks.”

“Aww, you think my face is pretty? Well shucks, Ryan, you sure do know how to make a guy blush,” Shane drawls back, and Ryan flushes, goddamn him and his traitor cheeks, and then proceeds to make it even worse by stuttering in his rebuttal.  
“I-I was being...sarcastic, you asshole,” Ryan shakes his head and Shane makes a face that has them both laughing so hard Ryan can’t even hear the 80’s rock Shane has playing on the radio.

The GPS they have mounted on the dashboard says they’re just fifteen minutes away from their destination, and Ryan feels that heavy rock of anticipation and fear flip-flop in the pit of his stomach. He’s scared and excited, and even though the disappearances and accounts of murder that all point to a supernatural killer are enough to make Ryan’s skin crawl, he’s not too afraid to go see for himself, not when he has six-foot-something of an unwavering, goofy skeptic with whom he is in love to accompany him.

***

 

“Ah shit. Here we go. Haunted murder woods at night. Can’t wait to get fuckin’ stabbed in the moonlight,” Ryan sighs. Shane pulls the key out of the rental’s ignition and stares out through the windshield at the sun setting behind the tops of the trees. 

“Sounds romantic. You gotta little ghost-stabbing fetish I didn’t know about, Ryan?” Shane opens the passenger side door, swinging his legs out and standing. He lets out a low whistle, immediately wrapping his arms around himself. His breath puffs out in front of his face in a little white cloud and he frowns. “It’s fucking cold.” 

“Yeah, no shit. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.” Ryan shoots back, walking around to where Shane is digging in the backseat for the fleece-lined jacket he’s now glad he ended up bringing. Everything is covered in ice, the air is absolutely frigid, and why oh why did they have to come here in December. Upon unearthing it, Shane stuffs an arm into one of the sleeves and then turns to tell Ryan that if anyone here is Toto, it’s him, but the words die on his tongue as soon as he straightens up and meets the believer’s gaze. 

Ryan’s face is softly illuminated by the orangey-red glow cast by the setting sun, warm brown eyes catching the stray light and appearing tinged with gold. It’s...captivating, and that’s all Shane’s stupid brain can supply him with. Ryan raises an eyebrow and Shane realizes he’s staring and he still hasn’t said anything so he coughs and hurriedly tries to cover his tracks, forcing his mind to come back online. Honestly, how does Ryan have him go from normal functioning human to fumbling, awestruck dumbass like with the flip of a switch?

“Uh, yeah. What’s the name of this forest again? ‘The Infamous Murder Woods of Washington State’?” Shane tries, and despite how dumb of a comment it is, Ryan still chuckles and shakes his head.   
“Well, technically it’s the Olympic Rainforest, but the haunted part where we’re going is Hell Hiker’s Wood,” Ryan explains, adjusting the camera strapped to his chest so it’s centered. Shane hums thoughtfully, zipping up his jacket before he gets to work putting his camera on. While he doesn’t know the specifics of the location, Ryan did give him a run down of what happened to supposedly make it haunted while they were on their way up, but since the cameras are going to be rolling, Shane figures he better get a refresher.

“So, what happened here again? Did some poor lassie get tied down to the tracks and then run over by a spooky --” Shane lowers his voice for effect, waggling his fingers at Ryan, “-- ghost train?”   
“What the fuck? And I already told you what happened when we dropped our stuff off in Port Angeles! You weren’t even listening, were you!” Ryan complains, but he’s laughing as he steps out of the way of Shane’s exaggerated gesturing.  
“What, at the hotel?” Shane drops his hands and Ryan rolls his eyes, ever suffering as usual. Fondness is some kind of drug, and with Ryan, Shane’s as much of an addict as one can be. 

“Yes at the hotel,” Ryan sighs exasperatedly, grabbing his scarf out from where it was stashed in the trunk before he slams it shut and locks the car. “Long story short, people keep getting murdered here and cut up in the same way, with X’s over their hearts and broken ribs, and their bodies keep showing up months later along the river, preserved like they would be with formaldehyde or some shit, only nothing was done to them, they were just left in the river.” Ryan shivers, sticking both of his hands into his pockets and shaking his head. “Some people think the spirit of the guy who was first murdered is now mutilating and killing hikers and tossing them into the river. Allegedly, after his death was when the bodies started showing up out of the river all intact.”

Shane scoffs, unable to restrain a skeptical chuckle. “‘Allegedly’, huh? Like we’re in a court of law? Is our murderous friend here a demon lawyer?” Shane laughs harder, and Ryan glares, only for the stern look to immediately give way into a wide, eye-crinkling smile.  
“You’re the worst.” But Ryan’s voice is saturated with endearment and the way he’s looking at Shane makes warmth flood through his chest, all the way into his cold-numbed fingertips and toes.

They hold each other’s gaze a moment longer than necessary, and Shane scrambles to make the moment less...intense. “Ready to head out?” He asks, glancing at the point beyond the trees where the last few rays of sunlight are quickly being overcome by the onset of darkness. Ryan sighs heavily, shoulders slumping as he flicks on his flashlight and aims it at the forest floor. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” The two start heading down the trail, Shane turning on his flashlight so that they can better see the poorly marked path leading into the darkness. They walk in silence for a moment, listening to the rustle of wind through the treetops and the crunch of debris beneath the rain boots they’d both purchased in preparation for this trip. Shane had gotten black ones like a normal person and Ryan had opted for these hideous fisherman-yellow ones so that he would be more visible for the spirits, for which Shane had mocked him endlessly and Ryan had punched him in the arm to get him to shut up. He smiles at the memory, more warmth blossoming behind his sternum.

“So, this demon lawyer,” Shane begins.  
“ _Not_ an actual lawyer, Shane.”  
“So this _demon_ , then. Why is it cutting people up the exact same way? Is there some significance to that, or is it just, like, its trademark? And does the river have anything to do with the preservation? I heard about bog mummies once, how they’re found preserved and they’re a lot older than a couple months. Have you ever considered that could be what’s going on here, something that can actually be explained by science and not demons?” Shane scratches his jaw, pretty sure he just got bit by a mosquito. One day in freezing cold, wet Washington, and Shane already wants to go back to his smoggy L.A home.

“I don’t know what the significance is, if there is any beyond that it must mean it’s the same thing that’s been doing it systematically all this time. And no, these aren’t bog mummies, I’ve read up on those at one point or another and I saw the pictures of the bodies they found here. The ones here are _perfectly_ intact, like the person died a couple minutes ago, when in reality, forensics revealed that they’ve been dead for months and were carried down the river for a big part of that time.”

“Hmmm, that is strange, I will admit,” Shane replies, squinting to see deeper into the darkness lying beyond the beams of their flashlights. “How much longer until we hit the river? I wanna see some preserved bodies.” Before he can respond, Ryan breaks into a coughing fit, and they stop walking as Ryan continues to hack so forcefully that Shane winces in sympathy. He gingerly pats Ryan’s back Ryan catches his breath and straightens up, shoulders shaking. “--I think just around a half mile or so more. And I fucking swear if I see a preserved body I am going to _lose_ my _shit_.” Ryan rubs a hand under his nose and then starts walking again, and Shane follows his lead. He’s totally not concerned about if Ryan is getting sick and catching a cold out here, and he’s _definitely_ not imagining taking care of a sick Ryan later on with soup and blankets, nope, not at all, thank you very much. 

“You warm enough?” Shane asks, because he can’t help it, he really doesn’t want Ryan getting sick out here.   
“Yeah, I’ve got on two sweatshirts under here.” A pause, and then Ryan suddenly comes to a halt, Shane walking right into him with a grunt of surprise. “Look. Up ahead, on the left. Do you see that?” Ryan whispers, his entire body suddenly rigid. Shane shines his flashlight into the trees on the side of the trail, but all he sees are moss-covered trunks and branches, too dense for him to make out anything beyond it. Well, if there is anything beyond it, which he highly doubts. 

“There’s nothing there, Ryan. It’s probably just the shadows playing tricks on your eyes.” Shane starts walking again, and after a moment Ryan is jogging to catch up, not about to be left behind.

“No, it moved! There was movement!” Ryan hisses back, and Shane doesn’t miss how Ryan shifts to walking on his right side, distancing himself from whatever it is he thinks he saw.

“Again, probably the shadows shifting because the wind is moving branches and shit.   
Relax, we’re not even at the murder river yet.” Shane assures him, glancing over at his friend. He’s still really tense, and all traces of humor have left his face, his eyes wide and dilated with fear as he peers into the shadows. 

It’s then that the wind really picks up, startling them both as it howls through the trees, penetrating icy-cold through their many layers. Ryan gasps and stumbles a step closer to Shane, who is holding a hand over his eyes to keep the vicious gusts from making his eyes water. “Well shit,” Shane mutters, listening to the ominous creaking and breaking of tree branches around them. As if in response, it blows even harder, so hard Shane almost expects it to pick them off of the ground. In the near distance he can hear a loud, splintering-crack the reverberates through his bones, and Ryan gasps again, grabbing a fistful of Shane’s jacket and tucking himself up against his side, seeking shelter from the gale-force blasts of wind that have just come out of the blue. Shane’s never experienced anything like this, not even during a storm, and he subconsciously angles his body to better shield Ryan from the worst of it. His eyes are streaming tears and he thinks Ryan is saying something, but all he can hear is the deafening roar in his ears, tearing Ryan’s words away right as he says them.

Shane’s biggest fear is that they’re going to get squashed by a falling tree, but Ryan is definitely on another page, as he is currently shouting “how can this NOT be supernatural!” loud enough that Shane can actually hear it. As if on cue, the wind abruptly dies down to just a tugging breeze, and both of them exhale a sigh of relief. Shane reaches up to wipe the moisture out of his eyes and looks down at Ryan, who hesitantly takes a step back so he’s not pressed against Shane’s side any more. “Holy _shit_ , man! This is fucking insane!” Ryan exclaims, eyes wide as he looks up at him with terror written all over his face. Shane manages a weak chuckle, still trying to recover his breath from when the wind had torn it away.

“Yeah, so scary, the demon’s trying to blow us away. Heh. It’s trying to blow us.” Shane adjusts his jacket and then motions for them to keep walking, and Ryan reluctantly follows, this time vigilantly looking all around them like he expects someone to burst out of the shadows and kill them both.

“Oh, this is so fucking bad, fuck, why the fuck are we doing this --” Ryan scrubs his face with his free hand, and the other appears to be shaking a little where it’s wrapped around the flashlight, the yellow beam trembling on the path. 

“Hey, chill out, man. It gets windy out here, that’s all. We probably hit it at a bad time -- maybe there’s a storm on the way,” Shane offers, “I think I hear rushing water, we must be nearly to the river.”

“Great, so the demon we pissed off can come and stab us and finish us off? Fucking fantastic.”

“Hey, hey! No one is going to get stabbed, just take a deep breath, everything is going to be fine.” Shane reaches over and pats Ryan’s back, and that gets the smaller man smiling, relaxing an infinitesimal amount but still relaxing all the same.

Shane counts it as a victory and the two continue their trek deeper into the darkness.

 

***

**Author's Note:**

> lots of love to you all, thanks for reading!


End file.
